Longhorns fans mobilize in hopes of swaying polls

Posters, Web serve as reminder of win over OU

By David Barron |
November 28, 2008

Austin Talbert of Crandall, shows the Texas-Oklahoma score before the UT and Texas A&M game on Thursday at Darrell K. Royal-Memorial Stadium in Austin. Talbert started a campaign using online chat rooms to make sure Oklahoma doesn't pass Texas in the BCS standings.

Photo By Nick de la Torre/CHRONICLE

University of Texas fans try and remind the country that they beat Oklahoma 45-35.

Photo By Nick de la Torre/CHRONICLE

University of Texas fans try and remind the country they beat Oklahoma 45-35.

AUSTIN — As Texas engaged Thursday night in its 49-9 beatdown of Texas A&M, Longhorn supporters were hard at work, too, at the fine art of pigskin politics. Everywhere you saw an ESPN camera, you saw a Longhorns fan waving a sign reading “45-35,” the score of Texas’ win last month over the Oklahoma Sooners, the Longhorns’ primary challenger in the human polls that help make up the formula for the Bowl Championship Series selections. The Daily Texan, UT’s student newspaper, printed thousands of 45-35 page-sized posters this week, and students who organized via Facebook and an Internet fan site distributed several hundred placards with the 45-35 score to fans as they entered the stadium. The group’s goal is to remind voters in the USA Today and Harris Interactive polls that the Longhorns beat the Sooners and thus deserve the benefit of the doubt in the polls, which also will be used to determine the Big 12 South representative in the conference title game if Texas, Oklahoma and Texas Tech finish in a three-way tie. “We’re a bunch of guys who are having fun and showing support for the team,” said Matt Parks, a senior government major from Houston who created the group’s Web site, 45-35.com. “This team has overachieved, and the fans are elated no matter what happens. “But we do hope that the signs will remind voters about the Oklahoma game and the fact that we played them on a neutral field and beat them.” The group’s Web site had attracted more than 11,000 visitors as of kickoff, and a Facebook group created by another Texas student, Austin Talbert, totaled more than 18,000 members. Other fans brought their own homemade signs designed to attract ESPN’s cameras, including one that read “Every Sooner Prays Nobody Remembers 45-35.” Parks said his group has raised more than $7,000 to pay for the signs and to foot the bill for a private plane that will fly Saturday morning over Boone Pickens Stadium in Stillwater, Okla., site of the Oklahoma-Oklahoma State game. The plane will take to the sky during ESPN’s College GameDay program towing a banner reading “45-35, Settled on a Neutral Field.” Surplus contributions will be donated to the University of Texas’ Orange Santa program and to the V Foundation for Cancer Research. Parks and Talbert wouldn’t speculate on what impact, if any, their campaign will have on the coaches who vote in either of the two polls that would determine UT’s fate. Talbert, though, said, “This game is like a 3½-hour commercial (for Texas football). Not to use it would be silly.” david.barron@chron.com